AIDS, byname of acquired immunodeficiency syndrome, transmissible disease of the immune system caused by the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). HIV is a lentivirus (literally meaning “slow virus”; a member of the retrovirus family) that slowly attacks and destroys the immune system, the body’s defense against infection, leaving an individual vulnerable to a variety of other infections and certain malignancies that eventually cause death. AIDS is the final stage of HIV infection, during which time fatal infections and cancers frequently arise.

The emergence of AIDS

On June 5, 1981, the U.S.Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) published a report describing a rare lung infection known as Pneumocystis cariniipneumonia in five homosexual men in Los Angeles. Expert review of the cases suggested that the disease likely was acquired through sexual contact and that it appeared to be associated with immune dysfunction caused by exposure to some factor that predisposed the affected individuals to opportunistic infection. The following month the CDC published a report describing an outbreak of cases of a rare cancer called Kaposi sarcoma in homosexual men in New York City and San Francisco. The report noted that in many instances the cancers were accompanied by opportunistic infections, such as P. carinii pneumonia. Researchers subsequently determined that the infections and cancers were manifestations of an acquired immunodeficiency syndrome.

HIV/AIDS; MMWR, June 5, 1981The June 5, 1981, edition of MMWR (Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report), published by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, described a rare lung infection, known as Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia, in five homosexual men in Los Angeles. The infections were later linked to AIDS.CDC

Initially, some researchers referred to the syndrome as gay-related immune deficiency (GRID), since it appeared to be limited to homosexuals. In the media the disease commonly was referred to as the “gay plague.” But the disease had also been detected in intravenous drug users, who became infected mainly by sharing contaminated hypodermic needles. It also had been observed in women with male sexual partners. As a result, the term acquired immunodeficiency syndrome, or AIDS, was introduced to describe the disease; the CDC published its first report using the term in 1982.

By 1984 researchers working in Africa had provided clear evidence for heterosexual transmission of the causative agent, HIV. The virus had been isolated the year before by a team of French researchers led by virologist Luc Montagnier. Montagnier and his colleagues identified the virus as a new type of human retrovirus, and they suspected that it was the cause of AIDS. But more-detailed characterization was needed to confirm the connection, so Montagnier sent samples to American virologist Robert C. Gallo, who had contributed to the discovery of the first known human retrovirus (human T-lymphotropic virus) several years earlier. Gallo helped establish that HIV caused AIDS, and he contributed to the subsequent development of a blood test for its detection. Montagnier initially called the new infectious agent lymphadenopathy-associated virus (LAV), but in 1986 the International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses renamed it HIV. Montagnier and French virologist Françoise Barré-Sinoussi were awarded the 2008 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine for their discovery of HIV; despite Gallo’s role in confirming HIV as the cause of AIDS, Montagnier and colleagues were the first to isolate the virus.

Prevalence and distribution of HIV/AIDS

According to data published by the World Health Organization (WHO), about 36.7 million people were living with HIV, approximately 1.8 million people were newly infected with HIV, and about 1 million people died of HIV-related causes in 2016. Since 1981 about 35 million people have died from HIV infection. In the early 21st century, however, the annual number of new infections began to decrease, and since about 2005 the annual number of AIDS-related deaths globally has also declined. The latter trend has been largely due to improved access to treatment for the afflicted. Thus, there has been an increase in the overall number of people living with AIDS. Nonetheless, a 2016 United Nations report on AIDS suggested that the decline in annual new infections had plateaued, and disparities in HIV incidence, AIDS-related deaths, and access to treatment were evident within countries and between regions, different age groups, and males and females.

About two-thirds of all infections occur in people living in sub-Saharan Africa, and in some countries of the region the prevalence of HIV infection in the adult population exceeds 10 percent. Rates of infection are lower in other parts of the world, but different subtypes of the virus have spread to Europe, India, South and Southeast Asia, Latin America, and the Caribbean. Rates of infection have leveled off somewhat in the United States and Europe. In the United States more than 1.1 million people are living with HIV/AIDS, and about 44 percent of all new infections are among African Americans. In Asia sharp increases in HIV infection have occurred in China and Indonesia. Access to antiretroviral treatment for AIDS remains limited in some areas of the world, although more people are receiving treatment today than in the past.

The origin of HIV

Details of the origin of HIV remain unclear. However, a lentivirus that is genetically similar to HIV has been found in chimpanzees and gorillas in western equatorial Africa. That virus is known as simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV), and it was once widely thought to be harmless in chimpanzees. However, in 2009 a team of researchers investigating chimpanzee populations in Africa found that SIV in fact causes AIDS-like illness in the animals. SIV-infected chimpanzees have a death rate that is 10 to 16 times higher than their uninfected counterparts. The practice of hunting, butchering, and eating the meat of chimpanzees may have allowed transmission of the virus to humans, probably in the late 19th or early 20th century. The strain of SIV found in gorillas is known as SIVgor, and it is distinct from the strain found in chimpanzees. Because primates are suspected of being the source of HIV, AIDS is considered a zoonosis, an infection that is shared by humans and other vertebrate animals.

Genetic studies of a pandemic strain of HIV, known as HIV-1 group M, have indicated that the virus emerged between 1884 and 1924 in central and western Africa. Researchers estimate that that strain of the virus began spreading throughout those areas in the late 1950s. Later, in the mid-1960s, an evolved strain called HIV-1 group M subtype B spread from Africa to Haiti. In Haiti that subtype acquired unique characteristics, presumably through the process of genetic recombination. Sometime between 1969 and 1972, the virus migrated from Haiti to the United States. The virus spread within the United States for about a decade before it was discovered in the early 1980s. The worldwide spread of HIV-1 was likely facilitated by several factors, including increasing urbanization and long-distance travel in Africa, international travel, changing sexual mores, and intravenous drug use.

Groups and subtypes of HIV

Genetic studies have led to a general classification system for HIV that is primarily based on the degree of similarity in viral gene sequence. The two major classes of HIV are HIV-1 and HIV-2. HIV-1 is divided into three groups, known as group M (main group), group O (outlier group), and group N (new group). Worldwide, HIV-1 group M causes the majority of HIV infections, and it is further subdivided into subtypes A through K, which differ in expression of viral genes, virulence, and mechanisms of transmission. In addition, some subtypes combine with one another to create recombinant subtypes. HIV-1 group M subtype B is the virus that spread from Africa to Haiti and eventually to the United States. Pandemic forms of subtype B are found in North and South America, Europe, Japan, and Australia. Subtypes A, C, and D are found in sub-Saharan Africa, although subtypes A and C are also found in Asia and some other parts of the world. Most other subtypes of group M are generally located in specific regions of Africa, South America, or Central America.

In 2009 a new strain of HIV-1 was discovered in a woman from Cameroon. The virus was closely related to a strain of SIV found in wild gorillas. Researchers placed the new virus into its own group, HIV-1 group P, because it was unique from all other types of HIV-1. It was unclear whether the newly identified virus causes disease in humans.

HIV-2 is divided into groups A through E, with subtypes A and B being the most relevant to human infection. HIV-2, which is found primarily in western Africa, can cause AIDS, but it does so more slowly than HIV-1. There is some evidence that HIV-2 may have arisen from a form of SIV that infects African green monkeys.

Transmission

HIV is transmitted by the direct transfer of bodily fluids—such as blood and blood products, semen and other genital secretions, or breast milk—from an infected person to an uninfected person. The primary means of transmission worldwide is sexual contact with an infected individual. HIV frequently is spread among intravenous drug users who share needles or syringes. Prior to the development of screening procedures and heat-treating techniques that destroy HIV in blood products, transmission also occurred through contaminated blood products; many people with hemophilia contracted HIV in that way. Today the risk of contracting HIV from a blood transfusion is extremely small. In rare cases transmission to health care workers may occur as a result of an accidental stick by a needle that was used to obtain blood from an infected person.

The virus can be transmitted across the placenta or through the breast milk from mother to infant; administration of antiretroviral medications to both the mother and the infant about the time of birth reduces the chance that the child will be infected with HIV (see belowHIV and pregnancy). Antiretroviral therapy can reduce the risk of transmission from infected persons to their uninfected sexual partners by some 96 percent when prescribed immediately upon diagnosis.

HIV is not spread by coughing, sneezing, or casual contact (e.g., shaking hands). HIV is fragile and cannot survive long outside the body. Therefore, direct transfer of bodily fluids is required for transmission. Other sexually transmitted diseases, such as syphilis, genital herpes, gonorrhea, and chlamydia, increase the risk of contracting HIV through sexual contact, probably through the genital lesions that they cause.

Life cycle of HIV

The main cellular target of HIV is a special class of white blood cells critical to the immune system known as helper T lymphocytes, or helper T cells. Helper T cells are also called CD4+ T cells, because they have on their surfaces a protein called CD4. Helper T cells play a central role in normal immune responses by producing factors that activate virtually all the other immune system cells. Those include B lymphocytes, which produce antibodies needed to fight infection; cytotoxic T lymphocytes, which kill cells infected with a virus; and macrophages and other effector cells, which attack invading pathogens. AIDS results from the loss of most of the helper T cells in the body.

HIV is a retrovirus, one of a unique family of viruses that consist of genetic material in the form of RNA (instead of DNA) surrounded by a lipoprotein envelope. HIV cannot replicate on its own and instead relies on the mechanisms of the host cell to produce new viral particles. HIV infects helper T cells by means of a protein embedded in its envelope called gp120. The gp120 protein binds to a molecule called CD4 on the surface of the helper T cell, an event that initiates a complex set of reactions that allow the HIV genetic information into the cell.

Entry of HIV into the host cell also requires the participation of a set of cell-surface proteins that normally serve as receptors for chemokines (hormonelike mediators that attract immune system cells to particular sites in the body). Those receptors, which occur on T cells, are often described as coreceptors, since they work in tandem with CD4 to permit HIV entry into the cells. Chemokine receptors that are known to act as HIV coreceptors include CCR5 (chemokine [C-C motif] receptor 5) and CXCR4 (chemokine [C-X-C motif] receptor 4), both of which are classified as G protein-coupled receptors. The binding of gp120 to CD4 exposes a region of gp120 that interacts with the chemokine receptors. That interaction triggers a conformational change that exposes a region of the viral envelope protein gp41, which inserts itself into the membrane of the host cell so that it bridges the viral envelope and the cell membrane. An additional conformational change in gp41 pulls those two membranes together, allowing fusion to occur. After fusion the viral genetic information can enter the host cell. Both CCR5 and CXCR4 have generated significant interest as targets for drug development; agents that bind to and block those receptors could inhibit HIV entry into cells.

Once the virus has infected a T cell, HIV copies its RNA into a double-stranded DNA copy by means of the viral enzymereverse transcriptase; that process is called reverse transcription, because it violates the usual way in which genetic information is transcribed. Because reverse transcriptase lacks the “proofreading” function that most DNA-synthesizing enzymes have, many mutations arise as the virus replicates, further hindering the ability of the immune system to combat the virus. Those mutations allow the virus to evolve very rapidly, approximately one million times faster than the human genome evolves. That rapid evolution allows the virus to escape from antiviral immune responses and antiretroviral drugs. The next step in the virus life cycle is the integration of the viral genome into the host cell DNA. Integration occurs at essentially any accessible site in the host genome and results in the permanent acquisition of viral genes by the host cell. Under appropriate conditions those genes are transcribed into viral RNA molecules. Some viral RNA molecules are incorporated into new virus particles, whereas others are used as messenger RNA for the production of new viral proteins. Viral proteins assemble at the plasma membrane together with the genomic viral RNA to form a virus particle that buds from the surface of the infected cell, taking with it some of the host cell membrane that serves as the viral envelope. Embedded in that envelope are the gp120/gp41 complexes that allow attachment of the helper T cells in the next round of infection. Most infected cells die quickly (in about one day). The number of helper T cells that are lost through direct infection or other mechanisms exceeds the number of new cells produced by the immune system, eventually resulting in a decline in the number of helper T cells. Physicians follow the course of the disease by determining the number of helper T cells (CD4+ cells) in the blood. That measurement, called the CD4 count, provides a good indication of the status of the immune system. Physicians also measure the amount of virus in the bloodstream—i.e., the viral load—which provides an indication of how fast the virus is replicating and destroying helper T cells.

The genome of HIV mutates at a very high rate, and the virus in each infected individual is thus slightly different. The genetic mechanisms that underlie the individual variation have been investigated through approaches based on genome sequencing. The HIV-1 genome in 2009 was the first HIV genome to be sequenced in its entirety. Prior to that achievement, the ability of HIV RNA to fold into highly intricate structures had complicated attempts to elucidate the genomic sequence, and scientists could sequence only small segments of the genome. The HIV-1 genome is composed of 9,173 nucleotides of RNA (nucleotides are the building blocks of nucleic acids).

HIV genomeIn August 2009 scientists at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill reported having decoded the structure of a complete HIV genome.Joseph Watts and Kevin Weeks, UNC—Reuters/Landov

Sequencing revealed that variation occurs throughout the HIV genome but is especially pronounced in the gene encoding the gp120 protein. By constantly changing the structure of its predominant surface protein, the virus can avoid recognition by antibodies produced by the immune system. Sequencing also has provided useful insight into genetic factors that influence viral activity. Knowledge of such factors is expected to contribute to the development of new drugs for the treatment of AIDS.

Course of infection

The course of HIV infection involves three stages: primary HIV infection, the asymptomatic phase, and AIDS. During the first stage the transmitted HIV replicates rapidly, and some persons may experience an acute flulike illness that usually persists for one to two weeks. During that time a variety of symptoms may occur, such as fever, enlarged lymph nodes, sore throat, muscle and joint pain, rash, and malaise. Standard HIV tests, which measure antibodies to the virus, are initially negative, because HIV antibodies generally do not reach detectable levels in the blood until a few weeks after the onset of the acute illness. As the immune response to the virus develops, the level of HIV in the blood decreases.

The second phase of HIV infection, the asymptomatic period, lasts an average of 10 years. During that period the virus continues to replicate, and there is a slow decrease in the CD4 count (the number of helper T cells). When the CD4 count falls to about 200 cells per microlitre of blood (in an uninfected adult it is typically about 1,000 cells per microlitre), patients begin to experience opportunistic infections—i.e., infections that arise only in individuals with a defective immune system. That is AIDS, the final stage of HIV infection. The most-common opportunistic infections are Pneumocystis cariniipneumonia, tuberculosis, Mycobacterium avium infection, herpes simplex infection, bacterial pneumonia, toxoplasmosis, and cytomegalovirus infection. In addition, patients can develop dementia and certain cancers, including Kaposi sarcoma and lymphomas. Death ultimately results from the relentless attack of opportunistic pathogens or from the body’s inability to fight off malignancies.

A small proportion of individuals infected with HIV can survive more than 10 years without developing AIDS. It was suspected for many years that such individuals mount a more-vigorous immune response to the virus, but scientists could not explain why. Then, genetic variations known as single nucleotidepolymorphisms, or SNPs, were identified in different HLA (human leukocyte antigen) genes, which code for molecules that stimulate the immune response. A variation in the HLA-G gene, for example, was identified in a subset of female prostitutes who had remained HIV-negative despite having had sexual contact with more than 500 HIV-positive men. Scientists identified additional SNPs that influenced viral load and disease progression in genes that code for HLA-B, HLA-C, and HCP5 (HLA complex P5), an inactive retrovirus first incorporated into the human genome millions of years ago that shares similarities in DNA sequence with HIV and is thought to interfere with viral replication.

HIV is capable of rapidly mutating to escape recognition by certain HLA immune molecules as well as by cytotoxic T lymphocytes, which help to control HIV replication. Two forms of the HLA-B gene, known as HLA-B*51 and HLA-B*27, for example, produce immune molecules that are particularly susceptible to escape by HIV. The mutation of HIV to avoid those molecules is directly correlated to the frequency at which the HLA-B*51 and HLA-B*27 genes occur within populations. Thus, the percentage of HIV-infected individuals who carry a mutant virus capable of escaping immune detection by HLA-B*51 and HLA-B*27 molecules tends to be high in populations with high frequencies of the HLA-B*51 and HLA-B*27 genes. In contrast, in populations with the lowest frequencies of those genes, only a small percentage of HIV-infected individuals are infected with mutant virus.

The ability of HIV to mutate and rapidly evolve to escape immune detection by the most-prevalent HLA molecules is similar to the rapid adaptation and mutation of other infectious viruses, such as influenza. There is some evidence, however, that within populations the adaptation of HIV to protective HLA variants may reduce its replicative capacity. In Botswana, for instance, where HIV has adapted to overcome the protective effects of the HLA-B*57 variant, seroprevalence (the frequency of HIV infection) is increased but viral replication capacity is reduced. Researchers have speculated that declines in HIV replication capacity and virulence may be attributed to not only rapid adaptation to protective variants but also increasing use of antiretroviral treatments.